Friday, May 27, 2011

"What Were You Guys Thinking? Why Did You Kill Him?"

"Why, why did you kill him?" a traumatized Vanessa Guerena begged to know as she was interrogated in a makeshift "command center" by detectives from the same Sheriff's Office that had just slaughtered her husband Jose. Her questioners, eager to exploit her trauma to extract information, initially refused to give her a straightforward answer.

Jose, who had finished a graveyard shift at the Asarco copper mine, was sleeping when a SWAT team from the Pima County Sheriff's Office laid siege to his home on the morning of May 5. Vanessa was doing laundry, and the couple's four-year-old son Joel was watching "Transformers," when the SWAT raiders pulled up in a Bear Cat armored vehicle.

The siren sounded for less than ten seconds; just a few seconds later, the order to "breach" the door was given because, as on-scene commander Deputy Bob Krygier later explained, nobody inside the house had "submitted to our authority."

Vanessa initially thought that there was an emergency "somewhere in the neighborhood," and called the police. When she saw armed intruders on her property, Vanessa screamed for her husband to wake up. Jose told Vanessa to take their younger son (whose older brother, Jose, Jr., was in school) and hide in the closet, while he went to confront the invaders.

Seconds later, Jose was sprawled face-first in a pool of his own blood, shredded by more than sixty rounds fired by the SWAT team. That's how his four-year-old son would later find him. Joel was left alone after Vanessa, who had gone out to plead for someone to get medical help for her husband, was assaulted and brutalized by the SWAT operators and then detained for questioning. The child remained alone in the house with the body of his dead father while Krygier developed a "tactical team" to extract the child at minimal risk. That is, minimal risk to the berserkers who had just killed Joel's dad.

As the minutes dragged on, one of the SWAT operators -- according to Krygier -- grew impatient over being forbidden to enter the home.

"Might as well finish what I started," groused the armored assailant. I suspect he wasn't referring to the need to render timely medical aid, unless he intended to administer "one behind the ear" as a form of Kevorkian-style treatment.

Krygier and his little band of heroes were decked out in full SWAT regalia -- "I had my body armor on, a duty belt with a side holster, a ballistic helmet, clear sunglasses, [and] a handgun," he later reported. Yet the paramount consideration of "officer safety" prevented SWAT team members from rescuing Joel in a timely fashion, or even confirming first-hand that Jose was dead. Rather than rendering aid, or permitting the paramedics to treat Jose, the SWAT team -- bold, valiant badasses every one of them -- huddled in the BearCat and sent in a robot to poke and nudge the victim to make sure he was dead.

Despite the fact that one member of the squad, Deputy Jay Korza, is a medic, nobody went into the house and "physically" confirmed Jose's death, Krygier later explained to detectives. Instead, a call was placed to "our SWAT doctor, Dr. [Tammy] Kastre ... [who] pronounced him dead in the way that doctors do."

This indifferent and perfunctory confirmation was an appropriate coda to a SWAT assault that began with an entirely spurious search warrant. Michael Storie, the police union attorney representing Jose Guerena's killers, has admitted that neither Jose nor his home was specifically mentioned in the warrant, which was served as part of a "complex investigation" into an alleged marijuana smuggling and home invasion robbery ring.

Three other homes were hit the same morning that the SWAT team gunned down Jose Guerena. But his was the only home devoid of anything resembling evidence in a criminal investigation. Thus it is remarkable that Jose, according to Krygier, was considered "the main bad guy" in this purported criminal syndicate, which was supposedly "hiring out to do rip crews -- to steal other people's marijuana and perform home invasions."

Assuming that gang actually exists, it would best be described as a private SWAT team, given that it would be carrying out exactly the same kinds of missions conducted every day by tactical police units in the "war on drugs." This would mean that the May 5 SWAT raids weren't so much a law enforcement exercise as a turf war between rival criminal gangs.

Distant relatives of the Guerena family were killed in a home invasion robbery about a year ago; that fact was described by Krygier as a "connection" to a "double homicide." Other relatives are allegedly involved in narcotics trafficking, but Guerena himself has no criminal record. The former Marine worked long shifts on a predictable schedule at the local mine.

If Guerena was involved in criminal activity, a low-key arrest was eminently feasible, as was a conventional search of the home. But that's not how things are done in the American Reich. It's far more convenient -- and, one supposes, a lot more fun -- for the police to employ what will someday be known as the Jose Guerena Model: Lay siege to the home with a paramilitary death squad, gun down the suspect, and then interrogate his terrorized wife.

When the questioning began, Vanessa thought Jose might still be alive. She still harbored a faint, fugitive hope that the armed strangers who had invaded her home had taken her husband to the hospital. It wasn't until the detectives had begun the interrogation that she was able to learn that Jose had died.

Vanessa Guerena being interviewed on local television.

As the numbness of pure horror began to wear off, the newly minted 26-year-old widow started to feel the effects of injuries sustained when she had been roughly seized from her home, thrown to the ground, stepped on, and otherwise "treated like a criminal" by the death squad that had just poured at least sixty rounds into her husband. That treatment continued -- albeit in a more subtle fashion -- after she was placed in the custody of the detectives.

"You're not allowed to leave," explained Detective Dan Preuss, who insisted that this "doesn't mean you're under arrest." That was a lie, of course: Any time a police officer presumes to detain a citizen, the detainee is under arrest. That Preuss was deceiving Vanessa about this -- as he was trained to -- is demonstrated by the fact that he and his comrades took several minutes to Mirandize Vanessa in both English and Spanish.

"We don't trap you in a room and say, `talk to us,'" Preuss assured Vanessa as he and his colleagues did precisely that. As Preuss worked to extract information from Vanessa that could potentially have been used to incriminate her, the detective repeatedly told the horrified young woman that her questions would be answered in due time. But the only question to which she wanted an answer was the one she asked immediately after the raid:"What were you guys thinking?"

A few minutes after the questioning began, Vanessa asked the detectives why there had been a search warrant for her family's home. In a moment of depraved creativity, one of them insisted that "I can't answer your questions" because at that point Vanessa hadn't been Mirandized -- an answer demonstrating, once again, that the young wife and mother, whose husband had just been killed while defending his family, was being treated as a criminal suspect.

"Is there anything in the house the police would be looking for?" pried Detective Preuss, who wouldn't have had to ask that open-ended question if he and his comrades were enforcing a constitutionally valid warrant. "Now, be honest with me ... we're gonna go in there.... Is there anything illegal in the house?.... Is there anything in those rooms that would be illegal? Drugs, guns? Monies?"

"These are important questions, 'cause obviously we're gonna find out one way or another," Preuss continued. "We also need to have information about ... people that you know, okay?.... Do you know if Jose was involved in any activity? Even if he's trying to make some money for you guys, so you can live good."

Vanessa, who had neither the time nor the presence of mind to contact a lawyer, replied that Jose was "working very hard" at the mine, that they had just bought the house and were doing everything they could to save money. This included taking the time to make home-made pinatas for their son's birthday party, as well as painting and refurbishing their fixer-upper house themselves, rather than hiring others to help.

Preuss seemed to think that all of this was an elaborate plot to disguise Jose's life as a lieutenant in a narcotics cartel. His questions suggested that the young father's home improvements included "secret compartments," "secret doors," and other hiding places for drugs, guns, and money. He also insisted on batting away a statement that Vanessa made that an honest investigator really should examine more carefully.

When asked about the AR 15 Jose reportedly brandished to defend his home from the SWAT team, Vanessa stated -- more than once -- that she "didn't see a weapon" in Jose's hands, and referred to the rifle found near his body as "the weapon that was thrown right there."

"Nobody planted a gun," insisted Preuss. How did he know this? Weren't Preuss and his associates supposed to ask questions, rather than provide the answers?

In all likelihood, the gun belonged to Jose, who had every right to use lethal force to repel lawless aggression against his home. However, it should be remembered that the Regime's home invasion squads -- both domestic SWAT teams and their equivalents deployed in Iraq and elsewhere -- are known to carry "drop guns" for the purpose of framing victims as "insurgents."

Jason Moon, who served U.S. Army in Iraq, testifies that a sergeant told his troops that "The difference between an insurgent and an Iraqi civilian is whether they are dead or alive." For the benefit of those for whom that comment is too opaque, Moon explains: "If you kill a civilian he becomes an insurgent because you retroactively make that person a threat."

If the AR 15 had been planted next to Jose, that could explain why the safety was still on when it was found -- something otherwise difficult to understand, given that he was a Marine combat veteran. The "drop gun" scenario, while dubious, is quite a bit more plausible than the one suggested by Preuss, in which a young father who worked overtime at a local mine and made pinatas by hand to save money was actually a secret drug kingpin whose home was honeycombed with secret caches laden with guns and cash.

The possible existence of a "drop gun," while potentially quite significant, is not critical. The purpose of planting a gun is to provide an ex post facto rationale for an officially sanctioned home invasion that results in a homicide. The people responsible for the murder of Jose Guerena appear to be perfectly capable of retconning this atrocity without the help of hardware.

A Timely Proposal

A decade ago I wrote a slender book entitled Global Gun Grab dealing with the subject of civilian disarmament -- primarily, but not exclusively, by way of the United Nations. I have a limited quantity available and would be happy to send a personalized copy to anybody who offers a donation of $10 or more to help me keep Pro Libertate up and running.

35 comments:

We are heading for serious trouble in this country if we cannot find a way to reign in the dangerous, deadly, criminal behavior that is running rampant in our law enforcement community. We all see it, but no one within law enforcement seems willing or able to affect needed reforms. Or, perhaps no one in law enforcement sees a problem at all, which is an even greater problem. Either way, the practice of letting the adolescents govern their own behavior has not gone well for any of us.

The fund should be used to sue the jobs and then the life out of these pieces of shit, coward, psychopaths, playing cops and robbers, their leadership, and the feds who are promoting this totalitarian behavior and funding and training these trigger happy criminal freaks.

The Russian, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, greatest author of 20th century was a captain in the soviet army during WWII. For his service to country he was awarded, after the war, to 15 years (for making some non-PC comment about the dictator Stalin), in one of the hundreds of soviet work/death camps.

Later he wrote that if people, instead of being submissive sheeple, who tolerate criminal activities by any person (including the "government" and the "police") had only met the cops with pipes or bats when they showed up for no good reason and killed as many as they could, then the cops would start having doubts about what they were doing.

In other words - anyone who enters any person's home, with no good cause, deserves to have their head whacked! It's called self defense. A constitutional right - no matter what totalitarian criminals - posing as judges, feds, cops, etc. think.

Take note of this advice, since it looks like the USA is almost there - USSA, death camps to follow.

This is not advocating using defensive force against lawful police, but is advocating defensive force against any and all criminals - no matter what they may title themselves.

When cops break the laws - they're no longer cops. They are criminals and should be dealt with accordingly.

Time to start calling out criminals - no matter what official title and authority they try to hide behind. They hold such only with our permission and it's also time to withdraw our permission when required.

This is what happens when an out of control government violates the basic tenets of our constitution. By trashing the constitution, abrogating the 4th amendment and demonizing American citizens, the results here aren't a surprise- they are predictable.

That work would be The Gulag Archipelago, a book I've owned for quite some time but only now getting to read.

I suggest everyone read it, because we're in the starting phase of the Archipelago's setup in this country. The Banana Republic of America will have lots of noxious insects to extrajudically murder in the meantime.

Names, we need names. We need the names of those murders posted on the internet with their home addresses. Protest need to be held at their homes. they need to be driven out from the city, county, state, and our nation. Expose their faces for all to see. let the light of day sanitize them from out midst. The sheriff needs to be recalled immediately as he is their boss and fully responsible for their actions.

I am completely opposed to the execution of this poor man, but seeing his background as an Iraq War vet, I wonder how many people he did the same thing to over there. I mean, one has to wonder if there is not a bit of karma in play for kicking in doors and shooting the defender of the home... Who knows? The problem is that the policies we have exported are coming home to roost.

It's a sad sad situation we have here in this country. One of the first things that needs to be done is to change the language used to describe the perpetrators of such heinous crimes. Namely to stop using the words "law enforcement officers". Whenever I see these three words strung together it's a marker, to me at least, of the mindset that has infected our populace. No longer a "peace officer" or "police" it has instead mutated into LEO. Which for all it's worth means whatever the bad boys in black want it to mean. Never mind how illegal (defined on the fly ),or immoral, it is just so long as our glorious legions of sturm-truppen operate under color of "law" we're supposed to roll over and let these swine have their way with us. I have no respect for anyone who draws a check off of my sweat so they can play cops and robbers and then abuse me for the privilege.

This is the same sheriff's dept which is led by that sheriff dipstick (however it's spelled) that in the immediate aftermath of the shooting in Tucson declared it was because of hateful rhetoric from "right wing talk shows" even though no investigation had been done yet. These are heavy-handed thugs, often found in positions of authority. Watch as the wagons have circled to protect themselves. If the marine had bought the AR15 there would be more than just a rifle in the house. As a marine, he would have cleaning supplies and would have extra ammo. If nothing exists it is pretty questionable that he owned a rifle.

Mo T is correct; the language needs to be changed in order for the public's perception about what is going on matches up with the truth.

And the truth is these LEOs are serving not the public but the racketeers aka The Government. I like Brass' "Badgethugs". Let's be creative here for more suggestions.

And if you know anyone who works in "law enforcement" turn your backs on them. Treat them as pariahs. Don't invite them to parties or BBQs. Shun them all, even if you consider them a "good cop". Those who want respect give respect and it is obvious that modern cops do not have any respect for the citizens.

Only for WNG nobody would know about this, period. Worse nobody would care, and I think most people do not care ABOUT anything save their government programs.

He isn't the first, this poor guy, nor will he be the last, at least he has a memorial here and on other venues where people care about freedom.

Who cared about Jeffrey Hughes though?He lacked qualification for any consideration for being cared about after his I better word this CAREFULLY, after all talking about CANADA here, he was ALLEGEDLYand I have NO PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OR OPINION ON THIS TOPIC, "executed" by the RCMP in 2009. Nobody cared, except his diverse and multi-cultural neighbors who liked him very much as he was a helpful and kind neighbor.

He dedicated huge amounts of time to an environmental group, and always helped his neighbors, fixed their computers, go to the store for them if needed, the kind of guy you want to live next to, a helpful fellow who respected his neighbors' rights as well as help you out.

At almost 2AM Mr Hughes was telling these people to lower the volume on their music, let's just say these were not NICE GUYS who were blasting the music and other neighbors were tired of the noise and the intimidation also. Here is what the Province newspaper:

The Nanaimo RCMP said officers were called “to a townhouse in the 500-block of Selby Street for a report of noise complaint.

“When officers arrived, they encountered a male. Given the nature of the subject’s response to police, the members withdrew and contained the residence, requesting the attendance of the Emergency Response Team and a police service dog.

“Paramedics were also asked to standby. While officers awaited the arrival of these specialized units, the male came out of the residence. A confrontation ensued between him and the officers and shots were fired by police. The male was struck and he succumbed to his injuries at the scene.”

Seems like Mr Hughes was UNARMED at the time he was shredded by RCMP gunfire, but he probably deserved it as he allegedly posted on an American website called Stormfront, so who even needs an investigation. From the Vancouver Sun:

Some people are careful about who they share their theories with, while others won't hesitate to chat about what they believe happened when gunfire erupted just outside their doors on Oct. 23, 2009.

"We bring it up and try to sort things out," said Beverly Ecuimates, as she puffed on a cigarette in her apartment, one floor above where Hughes lived. "There's so many unanswered questions."

A few close friends, including a woman of Cree heritage, insist he wasn't a hateful person.

But to the elderly woman who lived in the apartment above him, he was a quiet tenant and good person who often got her milk from the store.

Dino David, who knew Hughes for about 12 years, said they would chat about cooking, dogs and the going-ons of the apartment building they lived in. He admired the First Nations crafts David made and sold to a downtown gift shop, she said, and he even helped her print out explanatory notes that went with the handmade items.

"If he was into something evil, why was he doing this?" She asked. "This is spiritual."

Several petitions have been circulating calling for a public inquiry into the actions of the RCMP. Victoria lawyer Doug Christie has been leading the push for more information.

Christie said that never before has he been so "stonewalled" when it came to getting details about an incident.----

[I]f you know anyone who works in "law enforcement" turn your backs on them. Treat them as pariahs. Don't invite them to parties or BBQs. Shun them all, even if you consider them a "good cop". Those who want respect give respect and it is obvious that modern cops do not have any respect for the citizens.

A good idea, except for the fact that most "law enforcement" monkeys associate only with their own kind anyway. Clearly they need to CONSTANTLY have each other's backs. It's equally clear that they know that most of the citizenry, far from respecting them as "heroes," consider them to be nothing other than than the depraved brigands that they are and would just as soon string them up from the nearest bridge overpass, lamp post, high-tension power line, or railroad bridge as look them in the eye.

My every encounter with one of the state's badged enforcers today involves a conscious calculation of "what part of this creatures blue/ khaki-clad body is most vulnerable to my switchblade should things go south?"

There's one way to prove if Guerera had a rifle. The video recorded on the police robot's camera. Too bad the footage will soon be "accidentally" erased. Or due to some "error," it never recorded any footage.

Either way, the Statetroopers are murderers. It doesn't change anything.

My son is a law enforcement officer. I'm very very proud of him and he is a "good" cop. While I will grant that there are "bad apples" in every profession, I would have given more weight to this article if it had been written objectively stating facts rather than being a totally one sided flame against law enforcement. Guess I need to google this terrible event to find what the "true" facts are.

Anon @ 9:14 -- You could save yourself some trouble by merely clicking on the links above and reading the official reports I referred to in writing this essay.

The problem with "law enforcement" isn't the presence of a handful of rotten apples; the barrel itself is rotten, and corrupts those reasonably honest and decent people who go into that line of employment. You should gently admonish your son to get out of that racket and find an honest job.

An off-duty county sheriff’s deputy killed his ex-wife and shot a state trooper before he was wounded during a bloody Memorial Day rampage in Roanoke, Virginia.

The chaos began when Jonathan Agee shot his former wife Jennifer at a Sheetz convenience store parking lot, WSLS 10 reported.

After he drove away from the scene, police issued an alert with information about his vehicle and an advisory to be on the lookout for him. Shortly thereafter, Sgt. Matt Brannock spotted a car fitting the description and followed it, a police spokesman said.

As Brannock pulled up beside Agee on the highway exit ramp, Agee began firing at the officer, hitting him and causing him to take cover.

Agee continued driving and exchanged fire with two more state troopers before he was shot, police said. The troopers were not injured.

Both Agee and Brannock were airlifted to a local hospital, where Agee’s injuries are being treated as life threatening, according to CNN. Brannock, a 35-year-old Air Force Veteran, is expected to recover.

“The focus of investigators right now is piecing together the exact sequence of events leading up to both shootings,” said Col. W. Steven Flaherty, Virginia State Police superintendent. “This is a difficult day, needless to say, for Virginia’s law enforcement community.”

Jennifer Agee was taken to the same hospital where she later died, police said.

If he does survive his injuries, Jonathan Agee will face murder chargers. He has already been suspended from the Franklin County Sheriff’s office without pay, WSLS-TV reported.

[Anon 9:14,][y]ou should gently admonish your son to get out of that racket and find an honest job.

Will, while I would normally give those rebutting your work at least SOME benefit of the doubt, experience tells me that such is unwarranted here. Anyone who regurgitates the "few bad apples in a healthy barrel" nonsense is probably a lost cause. As for your admonishment for Anon 9:14's "good apple" son (who might or might not really exist), odds are that he has either been so fully co-opted by the scum at the bottom of the rotten barrel as to be indistinguishable from them, whatever might have been his original noble intentions, or, more likely, he's genetically incapable of finding or holding an "honest job," which is why he became a cop in the first place.

As for the charge of "flaming," our noble anonymous visitor might want to drop in on this site. While there, he and his heroes-in-blue should take the cypress trees out of their own eyes before complaining about the sawdust speck in yours.

... is a zoological specimen of the quadruped type, rather than the blue or khaki-clad, two-legged, tin-shielded variety. Honestly, I don't know why these low-lifes were ever compared to a very noble (and tasty) animal that has done nothing but serve mankind's best interests. I would think that "rat," a creature without any redeeming qualities whatsoever that are beneficial to decent human life forms, would be a much more appropriate zoological label for an amoral "law enforcement" organism.

The “just a few bad apples” line is the trademark of a truly brainwashed statist.

Here’s your “few bad apples”.................

“When current data is filtered to examine only incidents that can be classified as violent crimes as specified per the US FBI/DOJ Uniform Crime Reporting standards and then compared with the 2009 FBI/DOJ UCR Crime in the United States report as a per capita general population and per capita law enforcement basis the results indicate that overall violent crime rates are not too divergent between the two population groups with a difference of only 20.1 per 100k point between the two. However, there appear to be some more significant differences at a more granular level with robbery rates for police far below those reported for the general population but sexual assault rates are significantly higher for police when compared to the general population."TYPE=PICT;ALT="While the rate of police officers officially charged with murder is only 1.06% higher than the current general population murder rate, if excessive force complaints involving fatalities were prosecuted as murder the murder rate for law enforcement officers would exceed the general population murder rate by 472%.”

http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/?p=4053

Oh look!, a “few more bad apples”:

“Police Corruption Means High Percentage Of Police Are CriminalsThe SDPD currently has 11 officers out of 1,100 patrol officers under criminal or internal investigation. The alleged police corruption ranges from drunk driving and harassment, all the way to domestic violence, sexual assault and rape. That is a solid 1% of the police. If they play their cards right and all 11 get locked up, the SDPD will have about the same incarceration rate as the general US population! That gives the SDPD a solid chance to take sole possession of first place very soon.”

I'm sure the lady is sincere in her adoration of her son. Of course she sees him as one of the good ones. Of course she considers his job as a vital aspect of the safety of the community he protects and serves. But I have a counter to her "few bad apples" argument.

"While I will grant that there are "bad apples" in every profession..." Fine. Let's switch professions. Take a group of trapeze artists, because they also "put their lives on the line every day." There are a few bad apples in this bunch, as previously stated. They harass the other employees, confiscate the property of others, abuse steroids in the dressing room, and sometimes even assault other performers. If the good apples witness this behavior and say nothing about it to anyone, and do nothing to stop the crimes from taking place, they become accessories to these crimes. They will be prosecuted right along with the bad apples,if they are ever caught.

So why should cops have the benefit of witnessing corruption and outright criminal acts without facing the consequences that any other person would face? What is different about a badge that makes them immune to the expectation to act ethically? Like Big Sis Napolitano says, "If you see something, say something."

So why should cops have the benefit of witnessing corruption and outright criminal acts without facing the consequences that any other person would face? What is different about a badge that makes them immune to the expectation to act ethically?

The ilk of which Anon 9:14 is an organic part will never admit it (lest they find themselves admitting to the terminal case of rectal-cranial inversion we already know they suffer from), but the very fact that their heroes don silly-looking government-conferred costumes and cheap pieces of tin is, in their minds, what magically exempts said creatures from the laws of civilized behavior to which the human race is expected to conform.

"a form of Kevorkian-style treatment"I must strenuously object to what appears to be an attempt to correlate the conduct and ethics of these bipedal, vaguely anthropoidal, badged scum and Dr. Jack Kevorkian. While I cannot attest on the basis of direct, personal knowledge that Kevorkian never transgressed the fine moral line between being the facilitator of a decision already made to die, and an advocate for a particular result of such a decision , everything that I have read indicates that his main motivation was to remove the State as an intervening authority between an individual human and the exercise of his or her right to die. I regard any such comparison as grossly inaccurate and unfair. You either believe that in the secular realm, a life belongs to the individual living it, to be conducted as that individual thinks best, or you believe that the right resides elsewhere, and is subject to decisions made by some other human who claims to exercise superior authority over the life of another. The debate about the morality of the decisions made by an individual (or delegated to others) regarding the course of that life and the termination of same, other than decisions that constitute an attack on other individuals, belongs in a different realm than the one that I thought you intended to address in this blog.

"But that's not how things are done in the American Reich. It's far more convenient -- and, one supposes, a lot more fun -- for the police to employ what will someday be known as the Jose Guerena Model: Lay siege to the home with a paramilitary death squad, gun down the suspect, and then interrogate his terrorized wife."

Exactly.

Anonymous (who addressed the mention of Kevorkian), I completely agree re Dr. Kevorkian; according to my line of logic which starts at each individual's right to their own life, his actions were ethical as well as moral. However, the way it was mentioned was as a figure of speech intended to express a point rather than as criticism of Kevorkian's ethics.